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Boise - A new study of Western forest fires confirms what
is already apparent - wildfire seasons are getting longer and more
destructive.

But researchers with the University of Idaho and Columbia University also say humans are to blame.

The
study made public Monday says human-caused global warming contributed
an additional 41 400km² of burned forests from 1984 to 2015.

Researchers say the 41 400km² represent half of the forest areas that burned over the last three decades.

"We're
no longer waiting for human-caused climate change to leave its
fingerprint on wildfire across the western US," John Abatzoglou, the
study's lead author and an associate professor of geography at the
University of Idaho, said in a statement. "It's already here."

The
authors of the study, published online in the Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, say it's the first to try to quantify how
much human-caused climate change has increased wildfires in Western
forests. Some other factors that had to be considered as contributing to
the increase, the report said, included a legacy of fire suppression in
the West, natural climate variability, and human settlement.

The
study found that longer and hotter dry spells are causing Western
forests to dry out and become more susceptible to wildfires.

Specifically,
researchers said, spring and summer temperatures have warmed by 2- to
2.5° since 1950.

Researchers said that warming accounts for 55% of what they call "fuel aridity" from 1979 to 2015. The study
attributed the other 45% to natural climate variations.

The
study found that since 2000 there's been a 75% increase in
forested lands with elevated aridity and nine more days each year with
dry forests especially susceptible to wildfires.

"Anthropogenic climate change has emerged as a driver of increased forest fire activity," the report says.

Park
Williams of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, and
a co-author of the study, said the report provides a better
understanding of the effects human-caused global warming has on Western
forests.

"This knowledge will allow us to make more educated fire and land management decisions," he said.

The
study concluded that the trend of increased forest aridity resulting in
large wildfires is likely to continue for decades while there are
enough trees to fuel the flames.

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